"When everybody puts (on) the gi, they're the same. You know what makes us different? The heart." - Saulo Ribeiro

Monday, January 11, 2010

DAY 3* Posted a day late.

Sunday, pretty chill.

An early highlight of the trip came this morning. Aya looked out the window and said “Look, a monkey,” like it was the plainest thing ever. There were two little monkeys in the bamboo out behind our house. We’d been promising her monkeys since we conceived this trip. We weren’t even really sure they had them in this part of Brazil. Anyways, there they were – about the size of squirrels, with their little tails hanging straight down off the branch. Aya’s been a little freaked out by all the bugs, so it was nice to see her get excited so about nature. I’ll confess I was excited, too. Maybe more excited. I also saw some sort of pheasant in the same tree later in the day.

The weather is the same here every day. It’s sunny in the morning. Around noon it starts to get a little overcast, which is almost a relief. In the afternoon it rains – sometimes a few drops, sometimes a torrential downpour. We’re starting to get on a schedule.

It’s funny what you don’t see when you first arrive. Today I noticed that on the way to the store where we’ve been buying mangoes and avocados, we walk directly under mango and avocado trees that are bearing fruit by the bushel. The mangoes are almost ready for picking. I have to ask about the avocados. They’re a lot smaller than the ones in the stores, but they seem ripe.

We spent the day just touring around. Sunday is a slow day in uber-catholic Brazil. We went to the town centre of Lagoa. Russ tried to find the kiteboard rental place and we waded in the lagoon picking up shells with Aya.

We were without our guide/translator/fixer and managed to negotiate a few purchases on our own; breakfast at the bakery, picking out some flipflops, etc.

Another small step towards getting some jiu jitsu training in…we found the local academy. It’s in a guy’s house. No sign out front. I assume it’s in his garage. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow!